


Marvel's First Family

by Hellowhereveryouare56



Series: Our Impossible Reality [1]
Category: Fantastic Four (Comicverse), Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Defenders (Comic)
Genre: A shit ton of original characters - Freeform, F/F, F/M, Gen, Long, M/M, Multi, Slow Burn, Some might say a universe full
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26703676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hellowhereveryouare56/pseuds/Hellowhereveryouare56
Summary: New Yorkers are used to the weird. The stuff of pulp novel and B-movie schlock happens every Tuesday here: monster attacks, aliens and a robot invasion or two. With every terror and wonder, their heroes assemble to defend them from behind masks and capes. So what has everyone so rattled when an unidentified flying object looks to be incoming. Why are the Avengers releasing nervous public statements about a rocket in the Hudson?A new breed of superhero is dawning, and in the wake of global tragedy these may be the folks to take on the challenges of today.The Avengers, Defenders and Unity Squads are teams pulled together by crisis. Is the world of heroes ready, for a family?
Relationships: Ben Grimm/Alicia Masters, Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau/James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Fem!Johnny Storm/Daken Akihiro, Fem!Johnny Storm/Original Female Character(s), Fem!Johnny Storm/Shuri, James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Jenifer Walters/Wyatt Wingfoot, Miles Morales/Gwen Stacy, Nebula/Original Female Character, Peter Parker/Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker/Mary Jane Watson, Reed Richards/Susan Storm (Fantastic Four), Wanda Maximoff/Janet van Dyne
Series: Our Impossible Reality [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2182860
Kudos: 3





	1. A Rocket In The Hudson

The newsroom Randy Robertson stepped into was more alive than he had seen in years.  
The paper had been just trekking along on the news of the day for a year now. Randy always had respected J. for not jumping to the easy headline, fiercely resistant being consumed by super-antics like the other rags. Even if it meant the coffee came cheap and the light flickered more than they stayed on, J had been determined to keep the Bugle respectable.  
Obsession with what a "menace to society" the web-slinger was, aside. J never claimed to be perfect.  
A flurry of equipment laden videographers and reporters racing past him pushed him out of his musings.  
He caught Peter's arm as he raced through the room towards the elevator, camera swinging around his neck. "What's going on here, Peter? What's with all hullaballoo?" The young man briefly tittered at Randy's propensity to use language marking his age, but a stern look got him back on track.  
"Something crashed outta the sky and landed in the Hudson. Initial sightings pegged it as a meteor of some kind. The White House claimed it was a downed satellite, but NASA released a correction, saying it was a rocket." The last word earned a hype in pitch and gleam of eager eyes. It was times like these Randy realised how jaded doing this job, in this city, had made him.  
Oh, to have a teenager's enthusiasm again.  
"NASA?" Randy over-enunciated, sceptical. "Where'd we get a contact there?"  
A gravelling presence erupted from the Editor's office like a hurricane. "My son, the astronaut!"  
J appeared behind the two reporters and practically pushed them out the door. "And CNN's already down there! Can't have those national bootlickers steelin' the spotlight. I want a headline on my desk by three, gentlemen! Got it!"  
It wasn't a question. But Randy had known Jameson long enough that all his barking, was cover for fierce excitement. Anything to keep it floating and keep it honest.  
As the elevator trudged down from the 22nd floor, Randy noticed the kid wasn't the only one buzzing, though he was the only one frantically flicking through his phone. The entire squad of Bugle reporters, even their inhouse-consultant from Damage Control, were buzzing. When they stepped out into the lobby, Randy saw the frenzy had seeped out into the entire city. What was this actually about?  
-  
Numbers speed through Reed's mind. Calculations mounting with every hammering palpitation.  
The ships guidance system had long since failed, upon initial collision with the Cosmic Storm.  
Radiation of unknown type or quantity had permeated their meagre shielding, reverberating through every atom of DNA and leaving Reed feeling gelatinous and disorientated.  
All risks accounted for were for getting the ship and her crew into space: state-of-the-art suits, streamlined casing and tiered propulsion system to bring them to pass the Sinosphere faster than any of Musk's sub-par riff-raff. Reed had calculated for any eventuality, every eventuality.  
Except for partisan squabbling in the Senate. Except for the looming budget cuts. Except for human behaviour, not understanding how important this research data was to their understanding of radiographic interaction with their outer-atmosphere.  
He had accounted for everything except the human error that came with his own frustrations. They made him rush, made him careless. Made him dismiss the anonymous warning that came out of nowhere, from a friend he'd thought long since lost.  
And now the three people he loved most in the world, who'd looked at him not hours ago with eyes filled with faith and trust, were going to die.  
If he did nothing.  
His mentor had always told him: there was no problem without a solution.  
The speeds they were leaving the void of space behind them at were daunting. But here had to be a solution.  
Reed just had to think. Just had to stretch himself.  
-  
The atmosphere on the street was like she had ever seen. Though six months into her tenure with the American response team known to the world as "the Avengers", she had been at the sight of a disheartening amount of disasters none bore this.  
Shouts and pointing to the sky drew her attention. As made the regular withdrawal of smartphones and cameras, which had always annoyed her.  
How did these ignorant people think documentation would assist?  
Then it caught her eye.  
A small object, far out though clearly rising in speed, plummeted out of the deepest blue of the morning sky. It was still early, the ghost of the moon still haunting the heavens' depth. Yet stark against the cloudless expanse, an unidentifiable object came hurtling towards the New York City skyline. Towards its' denizens. Towards 8.5 million people.  
Aroused from awestruck horror by her own cellphone, she answered the phone with shaking hands.  
"Okoye? Hello? Are you up?" the voice crackled on the other end of the line.  
"I am here, N'rabi," She assured, calmed somewhat by the familiar roll of her countrywoman's name off her tongue. "Do you see what I see?"  
"How could I not? It is on every news channel. The sightings originated with this bird-themed social media, were corroborated as an incoming ship!"  
"National and international?"  
"Yes, but they are nearly 10 hours ahead. Still abed, I would wager, too. They will not have seen it."  
"Any confirmation of the ships nature? Terrestrial or extra-terrestrial?"  
"I believe you would hear that before me, Idajo Ododo." She smirked in irritation at the use of her call sign. "I am only a civilian. What worries me more, is you being so near the water. Depending on its size...Okoye, the destruction a wave could do." She was reminded of what the hellicarrier downing had wrought—the days of reclaiming the bodies, after that.  
"Is that where it is destined to land? The water?" Calculations tore through her head as she gazed sharply into the sky.  
A beat of silence on the line was followed by a cautious, "must you await orders from the Captain?"  
The decision settled into her stomach as she headed back inside her apartment to as their leader often proclaimed "suit up."  
"I am a Warrior of Wakanda." She uttered into the phone and perhaps to herself. "I need no one to tell me to act."  
-  
Sue had no idea what was happening. What the pushing sensation that ebbed from her fingertips was or why it had apparated as the radiation consumed them. She didn't have time for these questions.  
Her focus, though strained by the rising turbulence and heat that consumed that as they entered the outer atmosphere, was singular.  
My family. I have to protect my family.  
Her baby sister was behind her, a finger brush away, and Sue could feel agonised fear burn about her in waves. Her terror felt conflagrate and made Sue's heart clench in her chest.  
Shrapnel turreted past them at speeds Sue never imagined. Sue steadied herself as the perspiration dripped into her eyes and obscured her vision. She needed to think.  
If nothing stopped it, the nose of the quickly shattering cockpit would meet the surface of the Earth, land or sea, and kill them all on impact. That was if the G-force didn't break all their necks or snaps their spines before that.  
They needed a shield. They needed to slow down.  
Somehow.  
A sensation electrified the palm of her hands as if in answer, and Sue poured all of herself into it. One need, one though etched itself into her bones, every fibre of her being as she pushed around the remains of their ship, around her family: save them.  
-  
Money was going good right now. Luke didn't need to take as many jobs these days.  
As much as Pops nagged, tuition fees be damned he wanted to spend some time with his baby girl, while she was still an actual baby.  
The small knot that had burst into his chest the moment he heard Leila cry for the first time, widened every morning he had to tear himself away from the sight of Jessica nursing her in the morning.  
Each blood-soaked call, was another moment not spent listening to Jessica yell at New York, or watch Leila's toothless giggles. The two things that brought him the most joy in the world. What can he say, he was a sentimental guy.  
Hell, as much as Danny mocked him for being "whipped", Luke missed changing diapers, burping and getting puked on, the lot of it. Anything that involved holding his baby girl close.  
Luke thinks in retrospect, that might have been why, when the briefest shadow blocked out the sun and plunged the back alley into darkness, his bloodied hands hovered to his wallet, where the picture of his Jess first holding her wore pride of place next to his Avenger's membership card.  
Running into the newfound daylight, his eyes darted to both readjust and find the source.  
He soon found it. Looming above the city, inbound was a falling metal object that looked to be on fire. Headed for the river.  
It was still far enough away to run. To grab his girls and get out of there while they even could.  
But then, Luke thought about the thugs he'd just warded off Mrs Lou's flower shop. Of her own boy working down in the sewer with the Sanitation Department.  
How could he leave when so many couldn't?  
What would his Jess say if his first thought was abandoning the community he'd sworn to defend.  
No. That wasn't an option. There were good people he knew in lower Manhatten and all around the upper bay area where the...whatever it was, looked to be headed. He would call it into the community watch in those areas and divert Matt, Danny and Angela to those areas for clearance.  
Whatever it was, this was a job for the Defenders, to evacuate the inbound area, get people a safe distance away. Or the four of them not breastfeeding that was.  
Sweet Christmas, this was gonna be one hell of a day.  
-  
He was the wedge between these three assholes and oblivion. The expense of his back the only thing between them and hurtling out amongst the clouds. No parachutes, like in the 'force. No safety net. He was their safety net. The one holding the power of a vacuum back from hurting his friends.  
Jeez, when had gone soft on 'em. He supposed life or death circumstance would do that to a guy.  
The lil' shit that Suzie had dragged on to this pony show might have been hit first until he threw the kid in the zero-G back into her seat.  
Now ol' Benji was paying for it.  
Each muscle strained against the impact. His skin bristled, knotted and seemed to swell against the insulation of the suit; he almost thought he heard a ripping sound from around his shoulders and gloves, but it was probably winding pressure ripping his ears a new one.  
That was oddly more comforting than the idea of his only real line of protection between him and the elements coming apart.  
Then he heard a craning, creaking snap that put the fear of God in him. One of the wings, he assumed, was wretched from its fixture and hurled backwards from the shuttle but not before setting a firm indent in the shuttle mere inches from Slim's head.  
Dents meant a weakened structure. Meant exposure. Danger. Death.  
Ben pushed with all his might against the caving. Pushing every tendril of tenability into the failing integrity of the shuttle. If every system, every contingency, every backup plan failed, Benjamin Grimm would not fail.  
-  
Rhodes had just landed on the helicopter pad when Sam got the go-ahead from Fury to intervene. He was really starting to appreciate Steve's anti-establishment leadings in the last few years. The endurance test that was waiting for bureaucratic approval to help for draining. It weighed almost as much as the Shield on his back. Almost  
"What's the recon?" he asked as his fellow airman shirked the armoured suit.  
"You can thank your buddy at NASA for the leak. They were right—an inbound shuttle from their missing rocket. Infrared didn't pick up any of the pilots. Too much offset heat from re-entry. But with two missing wings, coming in that hot, at those speeds can't imagine it'll be much of a rescue mission when they hit."  
"We'll have to have condolences ready when we make a statement." Sam walked and talked with him as they headed back inside the mansion. "Jarvis, make a note of that. And contact the local coroner to be ready for identification."  
Sam sighed and rubbed the top of his head, hair close-cut. "This is gonna be a mess."  
They bumped into Carol on their way to the hangar, one of only three other official members with permanent residence at the mansion. The others, they needed their space.  
She was already suited up and went to peck her fiancé on the cheek before setting up the comms.  
Sam watched them from a distance and felt awkward and excessive, even in the vast space of the hanger.  
He wasn't sure how Steve had done it, splitting command with Tony for all those years. From afar they'd looked to have found a way to make it work. Tony, the resident tech-genius, billionaire and well-rounded asshole. Steve the even-keeled, tactician, a symbol of a nation and bullheaded jerk in his own right. Throughout all their clashes, verbal and often violent alike, they'd found a rhythm to balance each other out.  
Carol and he had...yet to find that. More often than not, he found himself deferring to her, whether or not he agreed and whether or not the plan succeed, simply because she seemed so much more...self-assured? He wasn't sure if that was the right word. But she carried herself with the kind of authority that he had only ever seen in the two founders and former leaders of the Avengers. If it hadn't been for Steve leaving the Shield to him expressly, a decision even Janet had been surprised by at the time, Sam was pretty sure she would have just taken command. But she honoured what the Shield meant to the team and to their country. And he continued to respect and be irritated by that kind of integrity. What was it that Steve thought he could do that she couldn't alone?  
He shook from his musings by the offer of the one of the Prime Comms. He took a deep breath and spoke: "Avengers! Assemble!"  
-  
Jannie was sure she was dead. Dead and gone to hell like that homophobic bastard of a priest said she would.  
She had remembered thinking a prayer when Ben threw her into her seat, before hitting her head. She would have considered that counted for Something with the man upstairs.  
Apparently not. Because all she that consumed her vision was flames. An infernal, eternal hellfire that distorted the last thing she remembered seeing clearly. Reed and Sue panicking in front and Ben bracing against the cockpit door, far behind her.  
What she hadn't expected from hell was all the fucking colour. Like toddler had tipped a paintbox over. A seemingly never-ending inferno of deep reds, the blare of yellows seeping into a strange mix of blue-ish green marked the outline of the figures around her. And absent any human face or hands, was a blaze of blinding white.  
Yet for all, what she assumed was fire, she weirdly didn't feel warm.  
Wasn't that what Sue had screamed last? That they were burning up on re-entry? If they were on fire, fuck if she was dead and in hell, should she feel, y' know hot?  
Jannie placed a hesitant, whited-out hand to the wall nearest to her and was met with a strange sorta sucky buzzing, like pulling Something within. When she moved her hand away, a large area of the shuttle wall had turned greenish-blue that outlined and distinguished the people from the tech. A quick look at her hand saw if even more blindingly white, and faintly glowing.  
What the fuck was going on?  
-  
The tea shook out Wanda's hands, spilling momentarily before a quick hex returned the liquid to the cup. She realised the shock had come from the comm in her purse which beeped with such veracity from across the room that she had to sprint to catch it.  
Sam came in on the comms, "set transnat to coordinates 40.686916, -74.036255. We have an unmanned shuttle, pilots: deceased inbound. I want a triangulated coverage of all affected areas and checked for potential aftershock waves off Red Hook, Elis and Governor's Island. Cease and desist orders have been sent to civilian ferry crossings but plenty will be in progress, fliers are to guide them back to shore and away from the wreckage. Impact measured at T-minus 50. Execute on arrival then await further instructions. Avengers this is a code: 6. Suit up!"  
Wanda took a second to allow the information to sink in then set her wrist-transnat to the coordinates.  
The Upper bay, below the Hudson River. Not far from the statue of liberty.  
Those poor pilots.  
No time to dwell now. The best way she could help was to ensure their families a proper recovery and burial.  
She hexed a transformation spell on her clothes and was uniformed in microseconds.  
From there, it was an elevator ride at the end of the hallway to meet the other in the quinjet.  
The flight from East 86th to the bay was a tense one, and she took the newest member -Dazzler, she hadn't yet chosen to reveal her civilian identity- by the hand and sent soothing waves through the contact. Immediately Wanda watched the tension in her shoulders dissipate and received a waned smile in thanks. Patting the others' hand in assurance, Wanda stood to see the holo-projection from War Machine's hand-computer and find her location in the plan.  
She was to cover straggling ferries still caught between the Jersey and New York State line, which was as they closer to the coordinates, fewer than expected. Just two ships.  
5 minutes out from the location, Wanda dropped from the quinjet, flicked a brief salute in thanks to Clint before hovering down to the nearest ferry.  
"Have you not heard? Not seen above you? You must divert!" She cried to the ferryman as they landed aboard.  
"Look here, Mrs Putin," Wanda rolled her eyes at the reference to her, for all her efforts, thick Eastern European accent. "Y'think I hadn't noticed? Can't budge this thing, even if I wan'ed to. Waves are rollin' the straight crazy! Churning up the entire bay! Back off, before I through y' overboard!"  
Wanda sighed, "I am neither Russian nor a threat a threat to you, sir." She pointed emphatically to the Avengers insignia on her shoulder. "But if you are having trouble vacating the area..."  
Conjuring clouds of her scarlet hexes, she firstly levitated herself 20 meters or so, above the water's surface, before doing the same with the obstinate boat. Allowing the hull to drip into the bay as she surrounded it with her magiks before crossing the relatively short distance and depositing the ship in the Erie Basin, to the amazement and applause of onlookers. Once they noticed the giant "A" on her back. She hoped the next Ferrier was less obstinate.  
-  
He led them into this situation. He would not abandon them.  
The trajectory calculation was sound in theory. He squints past the opacity of smoke over the vizor. He can see the barest flicker of light over the eastern seaboard come into view, a little over an hour before dawn. An hour later, dead or alive, they'll pass the surface of the water.  
His goal is set to the deepest concentration of light, of life. The city that never sleeps.  
Reed is furious in his handling of the controls, determination set into every flick and press and wrench of pulleys.  
If they're going to die at least let it be near help, near home.  
Reed didn't need to wish.  
If Reed's math was correct, and it always was, they didn't need a miracle.  
He had his variables. The equations slotted into place and he let the rules of physics guide them to Earth.  
-  
The King looked at the expense of screens at his disposal while nursing a quickly chilling cup of coffee. The bitterness helped stave off drowsiness. "Al Jazeera USA" displayed a small clock in the corner, counting down until the NASA-approximated impact of the vessel while showing the frenzied efforts of the Avengers and other costumed figures he did not recognise to clear the surrounding bay. They expected massive collision, and he was concerned as to how they'd fare, especially once the pilots' bodies were recovered. No doubt it would be a tragedy for the families.  
And then Something happened that almost made the kind drop his elaborate carved mug. Almost.  
The frantic Yoruba language reporter, struggled with her headset as the report came in and she hasn't her camera operator closer to the water. Then he heard the same cries in English from the assembled heroes.  
The King of Wakanda's dark eyes widened to saucers in pure curiosity with the frenzied declaration: "the ship appears to be slowing its collision, as the integrity of the ship and as thermal imaging states, reduction in heat output is being maintained from inside. Repeat, the shuttle is slowing down with efforts from inside the cockpit!"  
By the love of Bast, they were still alive!  
-  
The love of her life sat beside her, hands flying about the damaged control panel so wildly they seem to contort together. The stress and heat and blaring alarms and flashing lights that consumed the cockpit must have been making Sue delusional; making her hallucinate. For she swore, she just saw one of Reed's arm double in length to meet a switch aside Ben's headrest.  
Ben himself was out Sue's eye-line, even she craned her neck against the resistance of belt and souring G-force. He was somewhere amidst the deteriorating recesses of the cockpit. Sue screamed until her throat scraped, but it was no match for the roar of ionospheric wind around them.  
She didn't even know if Ben was still there.  
A salty mixture of tears and sweat pooled at her lip, and she screamed into the aether.  
The screamed as she pushed against gravity, against velocity, against fate.  
These confines of abused metal and stringent flames would protect her the contents of her heart, the three people she cradled within it if she had to force it to.  
A presence invisible to either sight or digital detection, but felt to Sue like a piece of her soul surrounding and binding them rushed to her call. All that maintained it was her will.  
Good thing Sue Storm's willpower, when it came to those she loved, was ironclad.  
-  
The digital description reader combined with the escalating shouts of confusion and agitation, it sounded like from the present costumed responders, reporters and public alike.  
Alicia got the picture.  
She nervously wetted her clay, stepped her counted 10 steps over to her turntable and began spinning, shaping the pot with nimble, soon orange-coated, fingers.  
As the description of the events carried on into the late morning, often relayed repeatedly with periodic updates, Alicia Masters drew out her subject from the pot in from of her. The figures held motion few of her contemporaries could hope to capture; the shaped curves mimicking water, an elasticity they could only marvel at.  
The description from the television tethered her as the images, the story, that unfolded in the circumference of the pot were brought to life with deft craftsmanship. This craftsmanship passed down from parent to child across five generations of her family. And, none of the predecessors, Alicia laughed smugly to herself, had her ear for detail.  
By the time, the newscast was bereft of new information, Alicia put her latest creation to the side for a moment, collecting her cane and leaving her studio to the payphone outside.  
Alicia had little use for touchscreen devices, for obvious reasons and she always found at any attempt by her college roommates to introduce her to disability catering features, the text feature rarely responded well to her Caribbean accent. She vaults preferred the tactics dial phones available by the dime. Even if it was considered old fashioned.  
The number she knew by heart, could probably recite in her sleep. The question was is whether she would pick up.  
Thankfully, the tone connected.  
"Venessa? It is me, you told me to call if I heard about anyone feeding the birds?" Alicia waited to hear the appropriate response before ploughing ahead.  
"I don't know how many but the eagles are definitely circling the Upper Bay area. Near the mouth of the Hudson."  
She waited again to hear a response.  
"I'm not sure. But if what they're talking about on the news is true, that it's coming from the inside, they'll definitely need the number. What was that?"  
She heard the end of the instructions.  
"Of course. And you take care now?"  
Alicia Masters retreated back inside to her studio and waited. After hearing the expected wheezing sirens outside her window and flurry of commotion, she bade her head out the window to confirm.  
"What happened?" she bade some passerby. Happy to oblige when they noticed the cock of her head and thick black glasses, he screamed at the top of his lungs.  
"Some lunatic just backed into the payphone, upended and drove away! New York, I tell ya! This is why no one drives in the city!" he petered off on his rant as Alicia closed the window and locked it behind her.  
You could never be too careful.  
-  
The damage wasn't gettin' worse at least. Some invisible force Ben would rather contemplate later was stopping the shuttle from being torn apart anymore.  
The only problem was now, the metal groaning in, pulling in on itself as it entered new gravitational and more importantly, atmospheric conditions. The shuttle was designed to maintain its vacuum, and with his pure force of "fuckin' try me", Ben had stopped that for the last few thousand feet.  
Now it was caving in on itself, crumbling and adding weight, making fall quicker.  
Whatever Ben had been doing earlier, it had kept them alive. Now with a sharp change in circumstances, it might condemn them.  
Unless. Ben prayed they were close enough to the ground for this to work.  
His eyes had been squeezed shut against the blaring light and sparks that filled the cockpit. At the angle they were descending he couldn't turn around entirely; not with plummeting through the vizor and killing Slim and Suzie in the process.  
He gripped with all his might the emergency release valve that had long since remained unconnected to anything.  
Ben's earlier efforts, combined with the extreme heat, had welded the door to exit the cabin shut containing the vacuum.  
With one impossibly large hand, he didn't want to dwell on a more than an illusion, he gripped the emergency release valve as a support rail.  
With the other, twisting his spine and drawing back as far as working against G-force would let him, he clobbered it again and again.  
Punching through shit usually made your hands bleed. Ben had taken out enough on the drywall to know that. Punching through metal, was again usually, impossible.  
How the holy fuck did Benjamin Jacob Grimm get the idea in his head that he could clobber a hole in a metal door? 'Couldn't tell ya.  
What he could tell ya, was in this weird nightmare he had where he and Reed and these two blonde sisters he'd known for years, stole a rocket, that's precisely what he did?  
And he never smiled wider, then when, as predicted, as the vacuum was pierced the shuttle first gained velocity, then gradually slowed, pulling their descent more angular. By the time they met the water if Ben's math was right, they 'de by at a near-perfect 65-degree angle.  
Perfect for breaching the surface of the water's surface without facing it like a jump from the Christler building.  
Now all to do was not to burn to death.  
-  
Her headscarf secured firmly in place she muscled through the crowd, as far as the police tape would allow and waited. The shuttle was visible now. People were screaming, pointing fingers and phones, praying. All customary when they had no idea what to do otherwise. No idea what was about to happen.  
To be fair to the general public, they did not have a precogniscient tucked at home safely, boiling the kettle for two cups of two. Destiny, of course, knew the exact moment she would walk through the door and bloody need it.  
By the size of the hurtling thing, she had gotten the message from Alicia just in time. It could not be more than 5 minutes until the actual crash—another thing for Destiny to be smug about. The exact time, correct to the second, as usual.  
9:48  
Not long now. All she had to do was be patient.  
She felt the eagles above them all, receding into the background as was the coward's way, but present all the same. If she were still into gambling, she'd bet over Governor's Island. At the call of the new Captain America, or so the papers called him.  
She had known the old one. Met him briefly. It had been a shame that, back then, they had been on opposite sides of the war.  
Destiny only knew what was in store for the newest incarnation. Like all matters of her kind's cause, she would watch him closely.  
2 minutes.  
The slip of plastic curled in her palm. She was ready.  
-  
It wasn't enough. Jannie let the tears slip and evaporate away.  
They were too close, she wasn't fast enough, she couldn't absorb it all.  
By now the smoke had long since cleared, the bay coming into view. The waterfront apartment she'd always wanted for the view, hurled past. Any moment they were going to break the surface. She'd heard Something about it being like hitting concrete. Wrong angle or wrong height? Jannie didn't know the right ones.  
She didn't know the answer.  
She could barely think past pure heat invading her every sense. She could fucking hear it.  
Seconds. They had seconds. She pulled everything by her fingers, every lick and ebb of energy. The blinding white, blazing yellows and hellish reds pulled towards her. Leaving, the metal of cockpit a wash of greenish-blues. Cool. Brittle her mind supplied from somewhere.  
Sue had helped her with science homework once. About what happens when metal gets cold too fast.  
It didn't matter that she couldn't remember. Nothing would matter once they hit the water.  
Jesus fuck, why was she thinking like that?  
Please God, please if she wasn't already dead, she didn't want to die.  
-  
Sue unbuckled her belt on instinct and dove for Reed's and Jannie's.  
-  
New York City had never looked so beautiful, as in the moments before Reed slipped unconscious.  
_(Part 2)_

Get him out of the water, she thought pressing his thin body against hers. One arm hooked under his arms and around his chest, the other propelled them through the vizor. Or tried to.  
A shard of glass caught at the remains of Reed's spacesuit, keeping them suspended beneath the shimmering blue, loosing vital time. Something from deep with her pushed out, shattering the glass completely, to release them.  
His mouth was open, she had to hurry. Not to fast, or formed nitrogen bubbles would cramp her legs and they'd never make it to shore. Just keep going, she thought as her lungs burned.  
Her pale hand reached through the mirage seen below the surface, through the surface the spray and grasped at something so precious she though she'd never let go. Another human hand.  
Exponentially multiplying with 4 layers of soaked through clothes didn't seem to matter. Nor did her convulsing to rid her lungs of the polluted water. They flew through theair on the handshake of a stranger with wings. Sue wanted to cry.  
Tears could wait. They were deposited on a concrete bank surrounded by EMT's and abulances.  
She held on Reed's shoulders steadfast until she watch them drain the floods of water from his throat and lungs. She heaved heavy panted breaths as the spacesuit was cut from her. They tried to usher her to the van to take the undersuit as well, but even in her dazed state she pushed that away, weakly but firmly.  
One red-headed young man put a hand to her head, but she pushed him off.  
A quick head turn made her realise something critical. There were people missing from the bank, two people.  
She gripped the EMT nearest to her, made her point clear politely at first, but soon began yelling when they pushed her down and said no one was to be found.  
Her reddened eyes, searched the bubbling surface of the water. Someone tried to grab as she removed the foil blanket and tried to get back into the water. They didn't understand, her baby sister and best friend were down there.  
That's when the water started fizzing. Not fizzing, bubbling, someone shouted.  
No, Sue thought. Boiling.  
Then it erupted. Water spouted like a fountain only to evaporate on contact with the singed air.  
Some boulder-rock thing was dumped unceremoniously by, what Sue could only identify as a star, burning bright and filling the air with haze and making the river boil for miles around.  
Sue hadn't seen any ferries, maybe they were lucky. She had her suspicion what would happen to anyone in that water right now.  
She suddenly felt sorry for pasta.  
God, she needed to sleep.  
She stubbled backwards into someone's arms. She was about to thank them as she turned around, before a scream filled the still heat laced-air. The star had driven itself into the sky.  
The EMTs had pushed themselves back to the edges of the impromptu medical bay. She was alone with this creature. She pawed, at its hands tried to get it to release her.  
"Suzie," it gargled like the sound of a granite grinding together. "Suzie, it's me." The thing held its hands to chest like she'd seen Ben do hundreds of times when he swore on the truth of some ridiculous story. She needed to find Ben, tell his grandma she was sorry.  
"Listen t'me Suzie. I dunno know what dropped me up top. But I didn't find the kid down there. Did that bird-guy grab her like he did you and Slim? Is she here?" It continued to gargle away like it couldn't feel her trying to push him away. Sue was too tired, too frayed. They'd missed her baby sister down there.  
Oh God Jannie! The tears were free rolling down her cheeks and the creature in its great looming height and great stony hands cradled her face and brushed the tears away. That was the last straw.  
"Get of me you wretched thing! I need to find her body. My sweet baby, she's down there alone. Her and Ben, I need to get them. I need to-" Sue tried to pull away but the rocky horror grabbed her firmly by the shoulders, pulling her away from the water with finality.  
"Suzie?" It gargled, but with a strange softness. Like a rockslide trying to coo at a baby. "Look at me." It ground out, barely above a whisper. Its hands craddled her face, pulling her to meet its eye as it stooped to meet hers.  
Hazel. Webbed with an orange-gold she's seen one place and a million times before. She held on to him, the rough, slated texture of his petruding orange skin felt like brink and sandstone beneath her pruned fingers. He had grown to 8 feet, though he never been a short man. The shoulder width had doubled and his hands and feet sweld to massive, to accomodate clubbed fingers and toes. Shredds of the outer spacesuit barely clung across his chest, only the trousers of his undesuit remaining in tact.  
He was unrecognisable and yet Sue couldn't deny whose eyes she saw. "Ben?" her lip quivered, traitorously.  
"Yeah, its-Woah!"  
His head whipped over her shoulder and she turned to follow.  
The river now in passive, steady laps had ignited in flowing incandensence, Sue squinted at the light momentarily confused before realising it was a mere reflection of the sky.  
She had to shield her eyes. Th explosion, even from 1000 feet below it at least, was like looking into the sun.  
Flame filled the sky for miles on end sealing the blue away for a golden sea, slyly dissipating with he diminished violence of the incipient explosion. And at its core, Sue struggled to make out was no star. It was humanoid, arms outstretched. Vaguely female.  
A pit settled into Sue's stomach.  
The EMT still huddled back from Ben's towering mass, though now they were a little distracted by something else defying every law of nature. Every face looked up cast in that light was someone not looking for Jannie. Snapping her fingers quickly infront of the nearest uniformed medic, Sue got her, albeit distracted.  
"How many people were recovered?" she glared sternly, hoping to hide her rising anxiety.  
"Just you, er," the medic looked at Ben's rocky form, whose attention was still transfixed by the fire that consumed the sky. "Three. Guy in the van is stable but still unresponsive."  
"Three?" panick slipped into her intonation. "You're sure?"  
"Yeah, I mean unless the response team picked someone up down river. But they usually flag us down. I-Oh shit!" the nurse raised a hand to her mouth.  
And Sue's fear was confirmed.  
Wisps of scarlet steadily consumed and exhausted the fire at the behest of a woman in a red coat, hovering above the crash site.  
And the figure at the centre of the explosion fell through the sky.  
Until she didn't.  
Janice had only over been on a rollercoaster once, when she was 12, the one time that Ben had her taken to Coney Island, when they had to tell her Sue was moving away for college. The was the only time either of them had heard someone "Wahooo!" that loud.  
But then again few other people could say they'd just learnt how to fly.  
The woman in red approached her as she flew higher, still engulfed in flames. Then it the woman's turn to fall, or at least stumble back on her wispy platforms, clutching her hand.  
The streak of light that was now her sister disappeared into the crown of their hometown's iconic monument and Sue prepared for a long day.  
She almost ran over the young man, that in fairness, appeared virtually out of nowhere on her and Ben's way over to the van containing her fiancee. Dangling from a thin thread, hanging upside down and chewing a hogie in red and blue pyjmas didn't make for great first impressions to people still wracked up on post-trauma adrenaline. But so far, the kid was the least strange part of Sue's day.  
"You want me to go gevh' 'ihm?" the kid asked through a bite.  
"Excuse me?" Sue had no patience for this.  
"Sorry," the half masked kid swallowed pulled the mask over his lower jaw then somersaulted to face them right side up.  
"I meant do you want me to go get them? Is it them? With all the fire I couldn't really tell either way. But they seemed real upset."  
Sue leant against the van, and Ben moved to put himself between the lanky kid in the onesie, before stopping him with an easing hand on his arm. Now wasn't the time.  
"The woman in red," Sue asked, to which the kid nodded for her to continue. "Who is she? Is she alright?" Sue felt each word drawing more out of her, and she slid her back down the van to land hard on her rump.  
"Suzie!" Ben reached out in concern.  
"You alright yourself, ma'am?"  
Sue waved away the questions before jesturing the now hestitant kid to continue. He cleared his throat as she put a hand to her forehead and and came away wet with sweat.  
"Scarlet Witch uses magik. She'll fix herself up nice, just probably a shock to the system. Not used to people reacting, uh, like that."  
Sue nodded vaguely. “My sister. Please, bring her back. If she thinks she's hurt the Scarlet Witch?" she wrinkled her brow quizically before the kid nodded. "She'll be upset. And angry. She’ll react. Badly.”  
She caught his gloved hand befor he turned to go. "It was an accident." Sue looked at him as earnesly as she could muster, before dropping his hand. She swore she saw him smile behind the mask, before swinging away.  
Sue rubbed at her face and kneck, let her eyes slip shut. She felt a thud of a presence next to her, Ben sitting next to her, by the van that contained their best friend.  
"You rest Suzie-Q. I'll wake ya if they say anything about what's happened to egghead or when Sunshine gets back. Whichever happens first, OK?"  
Sue was asleep with her head on his boulderous arm, before she could respond.  
-  
He stretched the webbing to its limit, to reach the low hovering hellicarrier, and make the swing across the bay. The whistling of salted air was tinged with strange clinging soot as if the air itself had burnt.  
Peter recalled the expelling of plasma that had called him from the crowd now pushed back by a line of SHIELD agents at Hawkeye’s direction. How could anyone survive something like that?  
The figure that had been the explosions’ centre -the blonde woman’s sister apparently- had flown towards the statue of liberty. Retrospectively, the irony sat bitter in the back of his throat.  
As the points of his fingers and toes made contact with the non-euclidean metal, his breath sped in depth to a pant and sweat pooled in the arch of his back and behind his knees.  
Gross.  
He crawled over the face of the statue, over the ory hairline, the viewing-ports and the highest point of the head before taking another leap to the torch.  
For the first time in its’ history, the steel facsimile was blaring bright as its name.  
Peter took a deep breath and prepared for the worst.  
Huddled behind the elebarate steel railings was the vague outline of a human being, hyperventilating from the ebb and flow of flame that extinguished and flared with each breath. Some kind of panick attack. That Spider-man could work with.  
“Hey there! You mind cooling the jets down there! I’m sweating my keaster off and here I am withput my bikini.”  
The figure turned, and looked at peter confused.  
“Who’re you?” Peter could barely make out her face through the blaze, but by the waver in her voice, she sounded scared.  
“I’m a friendly neighbour,” he softened his voice as he jumped down to crouch on the railings edge, “just passing through. ‘Figure you could use that right now. A friend?”  
The figure curled futher in on herself and avoided eye contact.  
“What’s your name?” he offered. Easy start.  
“Jannie.”  
“Nice to meet you, Jannie. I’d offer to shake your hand but youo kind get this ball of fire thing going on.”  
“Can’t control it,” she sniffed like cracking embers. “Please, I don’t know what’s happening and I don’t want to hurt anyone.”  
“Want some help with that?” She looked at him, again confused. “When I first got these powers,” he twisted to put all of his bodyweight on the tips of his fingers, as light as 3 years ago. “I didn’t know what to do. It felt overwhelming, like everything wasa threat and an accident waiting to happen. And the people around me, weren’t best prepared for ‘em, exactly.” He remembered Uncle Ben’s reaction when he’d accidently bent the banister in half and smiled. “But they showed me a way to focus.”  
The figure nodded, listening.  
“Breath in and out with me, yeah?”  
“That’s it?”  
“That’s it. Sounds too simple, but I promise it’ll work.”  
She nodded. They breathed together to the count of 12 when eventually, the fire started going down around her.  
“You’re doing amazing,” he laughed as the embers started to recede into her skin, until all remained was the quiver of heat into the air.  
Peter sat down next to her when the last of the flame only licked away at her hair, and grinned as she took a final inhalation and exhalation.  
“See, that simple.”  
She smirked and offered him a hand. It was red hot, and he thanked heaven for the mask for hiding his grimace as he shook it. But it made her laugh. She snorted when she laughed.  
“Thanks,” she hesitated. “So what happens now?”  
Peter puffed, “so ideally, you and me swing, or fly -whichever you’re comfortable with- back across the bay to Brooklyn with your sister.”  
“Great,” she said slowly, “then what really happens?”  
“Ummm-“  
“What, you thought I didn’t see the massive hellicarrier above the bay? Or million avengers circling?” She jestured wildly to the, admittedly, fair number of fliers hitting lower Brooklyn this morning. Not to mention, the...couple Defenders he’d heard radio in to coordinate with the Captains.  
“You can see the hellicarrier? Even in camo-mode? That’s so cool!” he said in a dwindling voice, even he knew sounded pathetic.  
A raised eyebrow and thoroughly unimpressed look, Peter was certain she’d gotten off of her sister, was her only reply. Fair.  
Peter dragged a hand down his masked face. It was too early for this. He was pretty sure it was past noon, but it was too early.  
Why was it never Ant-man quoting the 1950 McCarran Internal Security Act from memory?  
“Look, you guys literally crash landed from a UFO. The feds ‘ave gotta take you in, if only for a quarantine t’make sure you’re not carrying, I dunno space-cooties, and ask you a couple questions about how you got a rocket?”  
She folded her arms, “space-cooties?”  
Peter threw an arm ver his eyes and jestured in the there-abouts direction of the dock. “Federal custody. Could you? Now? Please?” She patted his arm and Peter’s spidey-sense could feel an eye-roll.  
“You are not good at this. This part at least.”  
“There’s usually more punching involved.”  
“What’ve they got on ya?”  
“Y’mean other than mutual understanding to looking the other way for vigilante activity in exchange for help outs during cosmic level threats?”  
“D’we count as cosmic level threats?” the grin she was giving him was wolf-like, all challenge.  
“Lady, you set the river on fire! Anyone else did that’d, they’d already be half way to pen-state.”  
“But you’ll let me off with a warnin’?”  
He laughed, “and why would I do that?”  
“I am significantly cuter than the type you guys bring in for this shit. That must count for somethin’?”  
Pushing off his calves and getting to his feet, Peter cracked his back. Did 18 count as “getting too old for this shit”?  
“Unfortunately, I don’t usually go for criminal types.” Somewhere, Felicia Harding was cackling her ass off.  
“C’mon,” Peter offered her a hand up, “time t’face the music.”  
The girl -Jannie, he corrected himself- looked up at him through long blonde hair, unmoved.  
“You want me to voluntarily go into federal custody, after I didn’t do nothin’, for what amounts to you keepin’ your job?”  
“Its more complicated that that but,” her eyes started to glow. Come up with something, Parker!  
“Look, you said y’didn’t want to hurt anyone and you clearly don’t have your powers down pat yet.” Her eyes narrowed but she nodded all the same. “You have a better a chance of getting t’grips with this in a controlled environment. SHIELD has facilities, can bring in people, to help you control this...fire properly.”  
“What if they lock us up and through away the key?”  
“1) that’s why you have a right to an attorney and 2) what if they help you? What if you got these powers for a reason?”  
“Y’gonna start Bible thumpin’ on me? What reason?”  
“Guess you’re gonna have to find out for yourself.” He wiggled his fingers to draw her eyes up to his still outstretched hand.  
She huffed and made eye contact with him through the mask. Evidently she found what was looking for, because she sighed again, before gripping his hand. He hoinked her to her feet, then turned to look back out at the expanse of the bay.  
“So how d’you wanna do this: piggyback or bridal carry?”  
“Piggyback” she said sheepishly, evidently embaressed at having to be carried.  
He turned around to let her hang on, before he started roasting again.  
“God, forget the statue. You’re the real torch ‘round here.” She had the politeness to laugh at his lame joke before being carried. She hugged her forearms around his kneck and they began the long swing back to dry land with her only partially crushing his windpipe.  
When they landed, her prediction wasn’t exactly as...off as he’d hoped.  
The blonde woman with the close cropped hair from before tried to move for them, but was already in large over-electronicized restraints herself, along with her stony friend. A few SHIELD agents approached as Jannie stepped of his back, an open set already in hand.  
“Whoah, guy? Time out, we come in peace. She’s gonna come in, no need for the theatrics.” The open handcuffs buzzed in the hands of the agent who carried them, still approaching, still circling them. Peter swallowed. “Or the toys.”  
“I was right! You lied to me.” Jannie whispered between grinded teeth and blazing eyes from over his shoulder.  
“I didn’t know they’d react like this!” he whispered back.  
Peter tried to place himself between Jannie, he seemed ready to bit back at a moments notice and the encrounching agents, who he was starting to fear for the safety of more than his charge.  
“Enough!” the cry carried over the air, even above the rush of the crowd that pressed against agents and NYPD alike, to silence everyone. It was times like this, that Carol Danvers scared him.  
She landed with a small boom, that sent dust lighty rising around them, between himself, Jannice behind hiim and the SHIELD agents surrounding them.  
“Stand down,” she ordered and even as her legs shaked almost unnoticably from landing, she marched over the the agent and took the restraints. She heeled turned to face them.  
“Step aside, Spider-man. All four of these people are to be detained. Including this one.” She was stern, impassable.  
“Cap, I don’ think this is-“  
“You’ve done your job, Spider-man,” she interrupted, before pitching softly to speak more directly to him. “I know what I’m doing, they’re going to be fine. Trust me, ok?”  
Peter swallowed again. Every inch of him was irradiating “no”. His ever trustworthy spidey-sense was screaming bad situation, bad vibes, bad, bad, bad! He planted his foot like a tree.  
Jannie pushed his arm and stepped around him. Holding up her arms she allowed herself to be locked into the buzzing restraints and be marched by the Captain to a red haired medic, who took her vitals with fingers pressed to her wrist, then nodded giving her the clear to be filled into the SHIELD holder.  
Peter tried to meet Jannie's eyes but when he did he saw a face looking so betrayed he had to look away.  
Captain Marvel returned to the skies to monitor the situation from above. And all became very procedural. Something very much like vomit burned in the back of his throat at that.  
The crowd of civilians and journalists churned against the riot shields.  
The guy on a gurney was rigged up to an ambulance before it wheeled away. The stony behemoth loaded in first, then Jannie.  
The crowd heaved and clamoured and raised in pitch. A woman in a hijab ducked beneath the police tape and ran into the blonde woman knocking her over. She was up and slipping back into the crowd before anyone could stop her, but the blonde woman was carted immediately into the van.  
Peter had a long swing back to his apartment that night, disappointingly absent picks of the "arrest" for Jonah and feeling decidely less like a friendly neighbourhood Spider-man.


	2. SHIELD Detention

Carol's hands started to sweat as they marched deeper into the facility. Not for the climate of the facility, it was surprisingly chilly for how deep beneath the Nevada desert they traversed; nor, was it especially out of nerves.   
She had been to this facility before, jokingly called "Area 51" by those in the know, though this sub-terranean building held creatures and items for more existentially fearsome than aliens. At one point in its history, it had held her companion.   
She glanced back to see the Sergeant's looming figure keeping pace with their guide and herself, but by the way his blue eyes darted at the stark concrete hallways and the unforgiving florescent lighting, she could tell he was just as apprehensive as she. 

Their guide in question was a stout man by comparison to his enhanced charges, with an unassuming face and a receding hairline. Nick had previously assured her of his proficiency and trustworthiness, so upon meeting him less than an hour ago, she took the judgement in stride. Coulson was polite and accomodating in-kind. Though she did pick up on the way his pupils dilated at the sight of the sergeant. Considering the man's ...proceeding reputation in the intelligence community, she remained unsure whether that response was invoked by alarm or curiosity.   
The latter was certainly warranted, given her own initial unpreparedness that he of all people had volunteered to accompany her. Whether the former was also, remained forebodingly uncertain. Uncertainty had never sat well with Carol.   
Coulson raised a hand bringing them both to a holt and began the elaborate digitised procedure of unlocking the door at the end of their descent. A quick glance to her companion revealed nothing but tightly schooled features.   
The crossed the threshold into one of the most secure areas in the United States of America. A location trusted to few. Carol felt the short hairs on the back of her neck raise.   
Two men awaited them at the intersection of four hallways.   
The taller, more regaled of the two a wide caucasian man with small eyes and an oiled moustache.   
The shorter, younger lieutenant was an Asian lad with soft waves of hair past regulation length and an excitable grin. It was he who stepped out to shake hers and Barnes' hands before turning to acknowledge Coulson in a way that made Carol feel awkward. Fanboys.   
"Captain Danvers, Sargeant Barnes, this is Colonel Alvidolt Strand, Pentagon liaison to the department of Enhanced Response. He's been central to detainment. He'll guide you around the facility and debrief you on the subjects. Lieutenant Kaper, you have the dossier?"   
The younger man produced a page paper folder and hovered slightly before Barnes relieved him of his awkwardness, taking it between two metal fingers.   
"Didn't realise we were being graced on high by the Avengers themselves, Agent." The Colonel gave a pointed look as he clasped his hand behind his back. Carol stood to attention under the scrutiny.   
Coulson gave a pleasant smile in return, "Fury recommended these two personally, Colonel. See if we can't put to rest these rising maintenance costs. 9 months of federal accommodation is quite extensive for a trespassing investigation."  
"Personal recommendation? Friends of his then?" the Colonel flicked between herself and Barnes.   
"He and I go way back." Carol offered, easily. It earned only a huff. She straightened her back.   
"Friend of a friend," Barnes muttered as three pairs of eyes fell upon him, he looked up momentarily from reading.   
"We got word the department initially had trouble ID'ing the occupants?" Coulson redirected.   
"Cooperation has been difficult to come by."   
"I'd imagine," said Coulson tightly.   
"The committee squared some small delays with the PATRIOT act. The Bureau did quick system crawl, found them in the Database. Got a hand on their digital footprint thereafter."  
Carol followed the exchange raptly. "Test scores, voting registration, medical records, social media presence. That sort of thing. Help get a picture of who we're dealing with. Build a negotiation strategy." The Colonel looked pleased with adequate work. That amount of background would certainly make their jobs easier.   
"Ain't one of 'em a minor?" Barnes pipped, now looking up from the last page of the folder. He palmed it close with a snap.  
The silence pulsated around the room. Carol nudged him lightly, before looking to the Colonel to continue the debrief.   
"Yes, well," he adjusted his belt, "can't be too thorough with matters of state security."  
"Ever the pragmatist," Coulson muttered absently, as a giggle-smothering lieutenant, saluted and marched down the corridor to the left.   
"Fury is also interested to hear about the side effects of radiation exposure." The agent raised.   
The Colonel rounded to meet Coulson squarely, stooping slightly to meet the stout man's eye.   
"That," the Colonel smirked, "is on a need to know basis. And you," Coulson was up-downed, small eyes settling on his SHIELD badge pinned to the lapel of his sand-grey suit. "Do not need to know."  
Carol watched the agent's as-of-yet normal impassive pleasantness, for a passing moment, turning cold.   
An exaggerated sweep of the arm brought Carol's attention to the dossier plucked from Barnes' grip and pointing them down the forward leading hallway. "This way, let's not leave our guests waiting."   
Carol half-followed, holding her head a little higher, before turning to see Barnes shaking Coulson's hand as the other turned to leave the facility, and motioned the Sergeant to hurry.   
Walking up to an enclosed hospital and a half, she suddenly realised what he meant.   
A man, Carol presumed was the "Reed Richards" the digital door tag denoted, lay unconscious hooked up to every medical device Carol could think of. Rank thin and gaunt, by his face couldn't have been older than his mid-thirties but the salt-and-paper greying at his temples would disagree.   
A man in a medical uniform flitted around his (presumably) patient, checking various vitals and making notes, his pinched, hooked face frowning every so often. A heart-beat monitor beeped steadily to his right; a ventilator, artificially inflating Richards' lungs (thank God for Maria's "Gray's Anatomy" habit) to his left.   
"The crash did this?" Carol question the Colonel, shifting through the dossier Lieutenant Kaper had given him.   
He looked up,"the G-force of re-entry 0apparantly, but the dip in the river didn't help." He said gesturing to the papers. "Stress response causes trained astronauts to faint on occasion. Wanna see what happens when untrained civilians take a spin, ask him."   
Carol remembered seeing someone drag this man from the underwater crash site, before   
"Has he been like this since the crash? Is there any chance of him waking up?" Carol rolled up.   
"Since the crash, yes. And the medics down here say it's difficult to say; comas are hard to predict." He sniffed. "When we had Rogers down here, it was for months on end before he eventually got kicking." The Colonel stated matter-a-factly, and Carol watched the muscle in Barnes' jaw jump.   
It had only been a few weeks since the funeral. The other Avengers made an unspoken pledge not to bring it up.   
Hastening to change the subject, Carol asked to be lead to someone in the land of the living. And who they could actually accomplish their task with.   
"I don't know if you'll find that here." The Colonel motioned them forward. "Even bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, these have been about as uncooperative as they come."  
"Why is that?" Carol prompted, keeping pace with the Colonel's wide quice steps.   
"Coordinated effort, they're hiding something. They weren't best talkative on first arrival, but after finding Richards wasn't waking any time soon they clammed up real good."  
The next case they came to was nearly entirely frosted over, the interior of the one-way glass coated with thickly crystallised ice and snow. Wiping away the condensation with the sleeve of the sweatshirt, Carol peered into the frozen depth of the chamber. If she squinted, she saw the distinct outline of movement in the upper corner, making her kick herself for not seeing it sooner. Legs hooked over iced ventilation pipes, was a small-framed figure, rapidly performing pull-ups, ignorant of the visitors outside.   
Carol looked to the digital label on the super-sealed door: "Janice Sarah Storm". The girl flashed briefly in her mind.   
Carol recalled her panicked escape to Elis Island, only to be cajoled back to land by Spider-man's intervention. And arrested alongside the elder members of the crew.   
Carol wrung her hands around her wrists, behind her back.   
"Why such low temperatures?" Carol addressed their guide, the Colonel with a comically oiled moustache.  
The Colonel smirked in response. "The nature of the mutation." He flipped to Janice's page in the dossier, a let out a low whistle.  
"Spontaneous full-body epidermal combustion; internal thermal manipulation; external thermal manipulation; radiation absorption: alpha, beta and gamma; pyrokinesis; pyrogenesis, hands; thermal vision and flight. And those are just the ones we know about! This casing," he wrapped on the viewing glass with his knuckles. Causing the figure within to start and fall from a sufficient height to make Carol wince.   
"-Was used on the recent Ares 4 shuttle orbiting Mercury. Chrisium-infused! Had to be, to withstand those kind-of temperatures, that close to the Sun."   
The Colonel chuckled to himself, making the absurd moustache crinkle. "Of course, this version is the double-glazed micro-fibre version. 2.0. Y'know why?"  
He turned back to his guests, who both stood in silence for a beat before Barnes took the bait.   
"Why?"  
"'Cause the little bitch melted the first one!" The Colonel was actually laughing now.   
Carol spared a quick glance at Barnes, who was staring intently past his own reflection on the iced-over case. If he got any paler, Carol was afraid he would pass out. She reached a hand out for his shoulder, but he caught her action, in said reflection and moved away from the glass and over to the abandoned dossier.   
Carol regarded the figure lost in the murk of the cold, as she brushed herself down and made a slow approach towards the glass.   
So, they knew they were being watched. Or the kid did at least. Didn't the general mention thermal vision?   
As the kid got closer to the glass, Carol was struck by the sickening childhood memory of seeing penguins at the Miami Zoo.   
She guessed it was no more revolting than the two she's seen before, in theory.   
In practice, the age of this prisoner, for that's what she was, struck Carol as wide eyes gazed back at Carol, through the augmented window and unwashed blonde hair.  
Interest. That's what that look was.   
The girl stood just an inch shorter than Carol and looked quizzically between the three of them.   
"Surely maintaining that kind of cold only adds to their maintenance costs." Carol introduced carefully. "If the goal of our interview is to establish a motive, to propel the case forward and decrease holding costs, surely the cold is unnecessary?"  
Barnes turned to the Colonel. Apparently also sceptical as to why these prisoners were being displayed to them like this.   
Colonel smirked. "Watch."  
He stepped over to a panel by the bolted door Carol hadn't noticed initially. Briskly typing at the keypad before pressing a finger to some slider, saw the blue tint to the interior of glass dissipate immediately.   
As icicles retracted from the glass and faint hiss wined from the pipes above, those sky-blue eyes widened. Carol was confused by the reaction at first and was about to intervene. That was just before she threw up her arm to shield her eyes.   
A flare of red-hot flame filled the case, pushing the glass to its limit. Carol watched in amazement as the glass' edges bent against the heat, gripping to contain it some miracle of chemistry she didn't understand.   
Seeing the barest outline of a figure amidst the fire, a young face twisted in rage, the cause for the girl's earlier reaction dawned on Carol.   
With the ferocity of the firestorm before her, Carol slammed controls to reinstate the rush of cold. The girl crumpled, panting on the floor, as ice hurried to meet molten skin.   
She can't control it.   
Barnes usually unreadable face was pure awe.   
As all of them gathered to quickly move on to the next subject, propelled by the hastened pace of the Colonel, Carol caught Barnes' shoulder.   
"Your experience with enhanced individuals is ...limited, correct?"   
"You mean apart from being one?" he quipped in a hushed tone, mirroring her own. This earnt him a quirked eyebrow and expectant silence. He sighed.   
"Never seen 'em that outta control before. Most flashy I've seen have been you an' Wanda. An' I don't know if it's age, experience, some combo, but you dames always seem a helluva lot more in control." The staunchness of his Brooklyn accent, which Carol noticed only usually appeared when spooked or excited, took her by surprise each time she heard it. Carol nodded for him to continue.   
"Kid's also got that pulp novel of a power set. "That we know of." I know we wanna rush this bureaucratic b.s. along, figure out what happens to 'em, but I don't reckon the kid's gonna get a fair shot from a jury." Carol hummed lowly in response.  
"What makes you think they'll be standing before a jury?" the Colonel threw over his shoulder, evidence of his eavesdropping.   
Both she and Barnes scowled at the intrusion, but the question worried Carol.   
"If they're being prosecuted for the illegal launch, even the kid, they have the right to go to trial. All but Grimm are civilians, they have a right to a day in court, with a jury of their peers." The seeming obviousness of Barnes' statement, only antagonised a glint in the Colonel's eye, that Carol did not like.   
"The new Cap's idealism rubbing off on you, Sergeant? Civil rights are for civil times. This is war. Don't you two watch the news?"  
The pair exchanged another worried look.   
"War with who?" Carol broached.   
"The enemy within." He gestured onward.   
The Colonel rounded a corner into a dimly lit hallway, like something out of the B-list horror Barton loved.   
Approaching what at first seemed a standard cell. That illusion, however, was shattered immediately by the litany of broken furniture.   
The horror comparison became more appropriate as Carol's sight adjusted, and the huddled figure came into view.   
"How you doing handsome?" the Colonel jeered at the deformed creature. The bench it was sitting on groaned in protest against it's stoney weight, as it turned in response.   
Looking into its face, the harsh lighting surrounding them did it no favours. Uneven protrusions of rock cast deep shadows and lost most human resemblance. Except the eyes.   
Hazel brown looked hauntedly from beneath a heavy cragline brow.   
"Ya doin' the botherin' round again Strand? Told'ja 'ready. We don't know nothin'. Quit givin' the kid grief."   
The voice from the creature ground out like the pestle and mortar Maximoff used preparing cinnamon.   
Rock to rock, stone to stone, the voice crackled and gargled. But against all logic of it, the same Brooklyn accent Barnes would rekindle on occasion, emerged.   
A mark of the man, amidst the monster.   
Carol's attention flicked to the digital name-plate on this door: "Benjamin Jacob Grimm."   
Barnes already had the dossier in hand.   
"What have they asked you about Sargeant Grimm?" Barnes stopped riffling through the leaves to pass a few loose sheets to Carol.   
Parsing through she noticed they contained various images of a broad man, with close-shaven hair and a wide grin in nearly every picture.   
Most of the images were institutional, portraits from high school, from an air force graduation (Carol recognised the uniform there) and one looking lifted straight from Facebook cerca 2010. The large man had his arm easily slung around the shoulders of another, rake-thin and gaunt with dark circles under his eyes.   
These made the last image feel out of place, oddly personal. The large man becoming a small boy, though obviously the same person in a way that Carol couldn't put her finger on. He wore a kippah and cautiously lit a menorah under the watchful of a tired-looking woman and a lanky older boy. The three of them looked peaceful, the candlelight of the candles illuminating ebony skin, and shining in hazel eyes.   
Hazel eyes.   
Once the recognition hit Carol, it was all she could do to not kick herself for not seeing it the second she saw the photos.   
The stocky figure. The wide jaw. The hazel eyes. All now encompassed in a mass of strange orange stone.   
She turned her back to the glass, suddenly nauseous.   
"What happened to him?" Carol wondered, only realising a moment later she had spoken aloud.   
"Working theory by the SHIELD research division, apparently, is the super hardening of keratin in the upper epidermis by the cosmic radiation. Keratins the stuff that rhino's horns and elephant tusks are made of, so they figure that accounts the texture. What they can't account for is the density shifting and the imperviability." At the briefest cross of confusion across Carol's face, Barnes tapped the dossier.   
""Not only has subject increased in mass but also in density, and it is believed contains the capacity to shift the density of things around him and their mass in equal accordance."" Barnes read verbatim, dryly. "So they're sayin' he doesn't have enhanced strength per se, but the ability to simulate via changin' the weight of objects around 'im. Apparently, been taking it out on "the accommodations"."   
Carol regarded Barnes for a moment. He'd been silent on the way down, only conjuring the barest reactions until the passed the mini-arctic. Why so interested now?  
"Whose "he"? The neighbour's dog?" Grimm ground out. "I can hear e'ry word from you bozos. Y'know that? Get lost and give a guy some peace."  
"You'll get your nap. These two just want a read on you, Ugly. They'll be putting you through your paces. See if we can't figure out what happened with the whole breaking into NASA thing."   
"An' I told'ja. Don't care what ya do t'me. I ain't squeakin'."  
"But you care what we do to your friends, don't you big fella?"  
The case fell silent, but Carol felt a glare heavy on her back.  
Barnes pushed passed the now grinning Colonel, brushing his shoulder on his way down the hall. Carol followed after the Colonel gave up his jeering and proceeded towards the final case.  
After the prior three cases, Carol was almost disappointed at the normalcy she found herself confronted with, in the form of a blonde woman sitting on a standard-issue bed without a single crease.   
"Susan Rose Storm" by the label  
In her hands was a book with some inscrutable scientific title Banner would probably have a greater appreciation for. Her eye-line flicked to them briefly, before returning to her book. Carol disliked her, already.   
The Colonel wrapped on the glass but she barely looked up.  
Instead, she flipped her middle finger up at him through the spine of the book.  
"Feeling grumpy today aren't you, doctor?" the Colonel chuckled.   
It was then, she looked up, straight at Carol. "You would be too." She turned another page. "If you were in my shoes."  
Carol shifted uncomfortably, "we're here to discuss the means by which you landed in this facility. The break-in, illegal entry into federal land and theft of a grade: 2 "Khepri model" rocket."  
"You're pretty fond of legal terminology for a vigilante."  
"The Avengers is a legitimate response unit," Carol answered, taken aback by the abrasion.   
"And how long do you think that'll last, airwoman?"   
Carol was dismayed into silence for a moment.  
"How did you-"  
"The panel-badge on your shoulder was a bit of a giveaway. Plus you've lumbering around with all the grace of a newborn giraffe. More accustomed to flight."  
"No one ever tell you not to judge a book by its cover?" Carol floundered.   
"I am extremely selective with my choice of literature, Captain Danvers. And you're not that complex a read." She felt her face go beet red.   
Carol coughed, "if you're feeling chatty, you might try answering some of my questions:   
-Richards was originally set to charter the vessel before funding cut to his project, was he the leader to this escapade?"   
The woman sat lips pursed in a small knowing smile. Carol felt her eyes narrow.  
"-What was the crew delineation?   
-Did Richards recruit each of you?  
-What were the mission parameters?  
-What caused the crash?"  
The silence was only interrupted for the next few minutes, by the flutter and pad of arching paper.   
"You can't stay quiet on this forever! Not if you and your team want to leave. Surely you have things you'd rather be doing?"  
"What makes you think they would ever let people like us leave?"  
"What do you mean?" The woman finally closed and put down the damned book, giving Carol her full attention. Though she did have the nerve to look tired by it.   
The metal of Barnes exposed hand must have caught the light through the glass because her only response was "ask your friend."   
"If you're intent on keep avoiding direct questions, we have other ways of making you talk. Priveledges you enjoy in your current state that can be revoked." Carol was barely inches from the glass, her breath steaming the glass. "I have the authority to-"  
Laughing. She was laughing at her now. Through bell-chimed peels, she declared, "and how long do you think that will they protect you?"  
In the absence of any contribution from the Colonel, who had left at the beginning of the exchange Barnes asked, "protect us from what?"  
The woman raised a single blonde eyebrow before looking around and Barnes nodded slowly; Carol had had enough.  
Carol marched forward, boiling.   
"You don't wanna hear file?" Barnes called after her.   
"It doesn't matter. She doesn't matter."   
Barnes cast her a worried glance as she pushed past. He was let hovering beside the case, but during that entire exchange he'd been of so little assistance and consequence, she no longer cared what he did.   
Damned them all.   
She had a phone call to make.   
-  
"So what are you saying, Danvers?" Fury's tone was like he already knew what she was going to say.   
"I would recommend diverting all resources to Richards' recovery, sir. As correctly identified in the debriefing and the info-dossier, they were uncooperative and intransigent."  
"Uncooperative."  
Carol sighed into the styrofoam around her lips before taking a drag of coffee and answering, "where not silent, they were outright hostile."  
Fury hummed. "And the efficacy of the persuasion techniques? After 9 months, this case is getting expensive, both in upkeep and to keep classified. The department wants a conclusion."  
Carol paused, she wasn't sure what he meant.  
"Persuasion techniques, sir?"  
"Dr Storm didn't have her requested books? The kid wasn't frozen? Memo obviously didn't reach; I'll have that resent."  
"No sir, she had the books." The bribe still got nothing out of Storm. She didn't see how the constitution behind the freezing though. "Did the kid ask for the lowered temperature?"  
Carol heard the director purse his lips on the other end of the line as if trying to figure out how best to word a response. "That was a disciplinary measure. Colonel Strand tell you about the behavioural problems the staff have been having with that one?"  
Carol swallowed. "Yes." She set the coffee cup aside on the windowsill and looked out into the expansive yellow of the Nevada desert.   
"Still, none of them were willing to talk, extensively. I agree with Colonel Strands' assessment: there's something we don't know, and those three aren't going to tell us willingly, not even under...persuasion."  
"Well, I trust your assessment," she heard him smile as he spoke. "What do you think it is they're hiding?"  
"I suspect it has something to do with Richards. And given his documented previous employment with the US government, and I would also infer greater cooperation on his part should he be roused."  
Carol got another hum from the director, clearly considering it.   
"What's Barnes' assessment?"  
Carol looked over to the sergeant, speaking amicably to a redheaded young man, the nurse from Richards' case, operating the coffee machine in the facility cafeteria. By his lack of consitant commentary throughout the tour, she assumed his thoughts were largely aligned with hers.   
"You'd have to ask him yourself, sir, but I would say he would mostly agree."  
"Put him on." Covering the phone with her palm, she waved to get Barnes' attention and gestured him over to the phone. He took it when offered by an extended hand and wandered to the other side of the cafeteria, bracing a metal hand against the back of a chair.   
Carol collected her now tepid cup and went to refresh it from the machine.   
"Nice to see him chatty." She pegged in her option and waited for the machine to buzz and wire to live. "He's been quiet all morning."  
The medical officer, by his badge, nodded as he sipped his own drink, "this place can get to you, being so far underground. Contains the mind and body both." The young man tittered nervously, and Carol gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed it was too much caffeine.  
"Yeah. Maybe you should slow down with that." She gestured to his own styrofoam cup. "You're vibrating."  
"Fuel for overnight-ers."   
"No one who can cover you?" Carol tapped powdered sugar and cream into the water and watched the deep brown lighten as she stirred.  
"No one else with the experience. They tightly vet down here," he took a deep chug, throwing back the cup, then whipping his mouth on the back of his hand. He pressed the button for black coffee and slug that back still steaming. "Can't have just anyone down here."  
"No, I guess n-" She jumped, as a steely groan came from behind them. The back of the chair had curved under the weight of Barnes' grip, but by the equalled steeled look of resolution and taught line of muscle from shoulder to jaw, he had yet to notice. Carol moved to ask what had gotten him so upset, but Barnes beat her to it. Pressing the locked phone into her hand she marched past her with the speed only a super-soldier could exert.   
The M.O. looked as confused as her, and she looked at the phone to see the call to Director Fury ended.   
Though he'd gotten a significant lead, by the time she had him in her line of sight, he was pushing off from the door to the woman's cell and rounding the corner. Carol shot the cell occupant a sharp look, before following Barnes' down the maze of hallways.   
She took up short at the still swinging door, lolling on its hinges and the destination of his rampage. Carol smoothed down her clothes, apology ready on the tip of her tongue as she entered the office of Colonel Strand.   
-  
The first thing she felt when she woke up on the ice-covered floor, was her hair pulled away from her face. She had collapsed with it down.   
Something pulled at it, at the bottom of her skull. Heat simmered just above her skin.  
"Wha-"  
"Shhhhh, you've got a concussion," a voice soothed came from behind her head. She would know it anywhere.   
"Sue?" She turned but couldn't find her sister. "Where are you?"  
"Right here."  
She turned to see nothing, just the empty ice-cave. She narrowed her eyes against the dark and jumped afoot when she saw sections of her long hair currently being folded over one another in a braid. On their own. In mid-air.   
"I thought you might want it out of your face. They took your hair tie when we came in didn't they?"  
She found herself nodding dumbly, amazed they were talking about something as every day as that when she was currently floating.   
She heard a giggle.  
"Do they know you're here?" she whispered, suddenly conscious of what might happen if their jailers knew one of them was out of their cells.   
"They've disabled electricity surrounding my cell-block including the cameras, diverting who knows where. No windows mean they wouldn't notice if they tried. Whether they're smart enough to check with infrared is another question entirely." she heard the smug grin in her sister's voice and for a moment she felt normal.   
Then her brow furrowed.   
"What happened? Is it why I can't see you? And won't they think it's weird I'm talking while I'm "alone"?"  
"Honey, you talk in your sleep." Sue giggled again. "As for what happened, well," a pale hand and blue clothed forearm appeared out of nowhere. Something firmly pressed over her mouth to stifle her scream.  
"Relax, honey, it still me. Some secondary power. I can't control it in the same way I can the fields, still working on that. But enough to sneak around here unnoticed, at least for a little while. To check up on you." She keened into unseen hands brushing hair from her forehead and tucking it behind her ear.   
"Enough to get us out?"  
"I don't know, honey." Jannie slumped, her head pillowing against an invisible shoulder  
They sat together in silence for a while, before the cool of invisible lips pressed to her temple, "I love you"'s were exchanged and she felt her sister was gone.   
Curling in on herself, she reached inside her chest to the thrumming constant of heat, a small flame she imagined inside her heart was like a friend in the dark.   
Like liquid fire pulsating through her veins, heat sped through her body against the artificial cold, until sparks lingered on her breath and the tears welling in her eyes. Since the crash, she even cried in fire.   
-  
Alarms blared. Security lights drenched the shuttle cockpit. There was too much data. Too many variables. Too much out of control.   
Focus felt slippery, like grasping at a handful wind. Pulled in a thousand different directions simultaneously, where each stimulus managed to break through the miasma, another would swiftly replace it. Centralisation upon the importance of one thing only elucidated the importance of another; it was too much. Too fast. His senses were overwrought.   
Lights. Sirens. Pressures. Heat. Screams.   
Screams.   
There were people counting on him. Who needed him to see through the fog.   
Numbers materialise around him in the ever-cascading levels of calculations needed -factors to account for. This was the problem of a lifetime, and every problem had a solution he'd find one if he could focus; he could save them if he could focus.   
If he could just look past the whirlwind and into the eye of the hurricane.   
_Go deeper._  
His shoes slipped against the linoleum, ducked around glass walls and bouldered past swinging doors. Red emergency lights drenched the facility and the smoke detectors blared to almost inhibit Reed's senses. Almost, he knew where he was going.   
Clenching his ringing ears he stumbled headfirst into Victor's lab, eyes frantically searching for his friend.   
Billows of exhaust, black and curtaining the lab like a vapourous yet impenetrable sea, let Reed get lost amidst it all, coughing, eyes burning and seizing outstretched hands to guide his way through.   
Harshly stubbing his toe announced contact with the machine, the source of the explosion in question. He fought against burning lungs to cry for Victor if only he could hear him above the torrent. Too loud, too much. He couldn't find him, couldn't save him. Unless...  
He knew this lab, had spent hours tinkering alongside his friend and colleague even if it was only outwardly "tolerated" by the said fellow scientist. Victor was a genius, a fact he relied upon to fuel his arrogance and so rarely double-checked his work. A mistake Reed couldn't afford. Not again.  
Not again what? What disaster could he remember that had resulted from error? Or rather not remember? It was irrelevant for now; he had to get Victor out of the smoke before he asphyxiated.   
He followed his stumbling hands along with the coving of the lab ceiling, rounding a corner before...ha! The metal grating with a catch to keep it closed. With just the tips of his fingers, he hasped onto the catch, pushing the vent open and watched the room vacate.   
With the smoke removed it was a scramble to the other side of the room to find Victor benumbed by the fumes.   
A problem. A solution. Victor would not thank him for this when he awakened, having to face his failure, something neither of them ever reacted to well in all the years they had known each other. But then, Reed suspected he would be more enraged with himself when he realised he had finally reached his own limits. Maybe then he might accept them. One could wish.   
Tipping the point of his jaw upwards and pinching Victor's nose, inhaling and carefully filled the other's lungs with air. Four sharp breath-fulls.   
He then moved to his chest. Crossing one clasped hand over the other and pushing his body weight into the solar plexus of the man below him. He counted quickly, struggling against the overwhelming bombardment of sensory input.   
Fight through it, find the focal point, hold on to it.   
If he could look past the whirlwind into the eye of the hurricane. Wait for the silence.   
_Go deeper still. I need to find it._   
A swinging office light, casting light and dark to his face on a pendulum, dilating and contracting his pupils, never allowing them to adjust. Yelling. Spittle flying at his face. Secret information. Malignant information.   
_Where did it all go?_  
I destroyed it of course.   
In the eye of the hurricane, there is quiet, finally, quiet. No rushes, no lights that sway or blare or shine too bright. Nothing moves. No alarms, no desperation. No time with which to measure the persistence of any thought or feeling. Nothing but stillness. No motion. With stillness, there is only silence. Reed cannot move.   
The eye of the hurricane holds no bounds and yet is surrounded by everything Reed longs to avoid. He has been given peace in his ceaseless emptiness, but three shadows call from the storm. The is nothing but the quiet, in a moment that lasts forever.   
But Reed is not alone. Something alien pinches and pricks and pulls apart at his consciousness. How often has he experienced the messes of the world like violent weather; now he longs for the noise, anything to distract from the invasive pressurised searching through his mind.   
Who are you?   
_No one._   
Who are you?   
_No one._  
Reed presses back. Stretching his will through the dismissal, through the shields, through the one-way mirror that allows this stranger into his mind but not their own. An unequal playing field Reed will force to be even if he has to.   
**WHO ARE YOU?**  
_I am Stepford._ The presence answers with a shake, though both lack corporeality. He is afraid.   
Why are you inside my mind? Are you the reason I cannot move forward?  
_Yes and no. I am here to reclaim that which would rather forget. I am here to reclaim for my people what you would rather was wiped from existence._   
What?  
_Your research into the effect of radiation on the homo sapien genome, by the most brilliant mind of the modern age. Legitimises our cause. Lost in the material world. But the world of memories is expansive, and you, Reed Richards have an especially elastic mind. The mind of a genius, the mind of an explorer. The mind never really loses anything; some things fade, gather dust. But they shine a new upon reflection. One only need to bring them into the light._  
Birthdays; the location of odd socks; a broken arm at 8; childhood crushes; teenage embarrassments; adulthood firsts.   
All thought receded into the mists of the mundane. All brought rushing back in a pang of mental anguish, that, if Reed had a voice on this plane would make his lungs burst with a scream.   
The invasion becomes more desperate, riffling through his life as one may through a junk draw. The silence, the peace of the hypnoses, long gone.   
Reed is now made to be away of every second of the presence, this incursion upon the most private and unknown apse of his psyche, he feels and it aches. It feels so wrong to have this hostile presence here.   
And yet with this sudden awareness, Reed also feels others. Presences, tendrils, tethers.   
Though he is lost in the hurricane wisps of three anchors lie somewhere in the chasms of the back of his mind. On some esoteric level he knows, they have not always been there, birthed into existence since the crash.   
He is in the middle of chaos manufactured by hostile invasion and he has three tethers at his disposal. He gives each a small tug, just a test.   
The third returned to him with a granular steadiness. Assurance certain as gravity, pulling minute objects towards larger ones. There is the breadth, there is jaded sincerity and there is an overwhelming absolute sense of self.   
The second flares with raging passion. Excited flames, bound of curiosity and exploding with trusting spirit. It cannot be contained for it cannot be held down, motion coming to it as easily and weightlessly as compassion.  
The first almost demands not to be noticed. And yet it exists, as pulsating and brilliant as the last, and somehow Reed knows this connection is from where the other two originate, that this facilitated the others, deepened the others. He reaches out to touch this tether and feels so much love, it is as if his incorporeal chest will burst. Love, unconditional. Love, unyielding. The fierce desire to protect from harm, at all cost.   
He holds these tethers, these anchors as delicately as he can. He knows he must shield them from what comes next. Knows that this connection with those he holds most dear must be guarded against what comes next, at all cost.   
The hurricane still rages around him, despite his momentary distraction. Enough is enough.   
I hope you find what it is you want.   
_No. No! Not found. Somewhere but deep too deep. I must go deeper. Must-_  
This is my mind. I know it better than any psychic. And it is time I had it back under **MY** control.   
_What are you doing?_  
You are done.  
_No. Please stop._   
You want access to my mind. The greatest mind of the modern age. Have it, have everything.   
_No!_ Something screamed. Something snapped. His precious tether held tight in the back of his mind guarded by instinct and subconscious, and awareness thereof slowly faded as the fog over his mental world began to unveil.   
The light hurt at first. Crust around his eyes and nostrils tugged against newfound resistance.   
And at first, he though the steady beeping somewhere to his right was residue from the most peculiar dream.   
Reality hit when he heard a thud on concrete flooring.   
Though his head rushed with a fuzzy return to equilibrium, he peered over the side of, what appeared to be, a hospital bed, and saw the pathetic huddled form of a red-headed nurse, who was at this time, pooling a considerable nosebleed on the floor. His adversary from his dream.   
_I am sorry Stepford. I do truly hope you find what you are looking for._  
_Now I must find my family._  
-  
Don't ever ask him how he knew. Call it a gut feeling, call it instinct, whatever. Somehow, he knew Reed was awake. Lookin' back, he wasn't sure it was just that, that got him to get his ass into gear. But it certainly contributed, he'd give Reed that at least.   
A crack of the neck and a blink o' the eye later, there was a Ben shaped hole into the one-way mirror where these freakazoids got ol' voyeuristic on 'im. Creeps.   
Still, he had to laugh. "Reinforced with steel" his ass.   
Now, he was out. First t'find Suzie; she'd been in his cell to talk earlier. If she'd been on the wander around this hell-hole she'd know where Slim and the kid were.   
Bein' all stealthy like at his size wasn't really an option, the floor still compressed a little. And the lights shook as he walked beneath 'em. He got to the corner where he thought he'd saw those inspector-weirdos go to see Suzie earlier. May as well holler. He hollered.   
"I'm here Ben!" She was cryin' and poundin' on the glass, he heard her. But for the life of 'im, like earlier, he couldn't see her.   
"I'm gonna get this door open. Get you out. But then you gotta become visible, blondie. 'Cause 'ersewise I might tread on 'ya."  
Ben crushed the control panel and watched reinforced bars slide shut at the top and bottom, as an electronic voice declared unauthorised attempted entry and announced to the entire place. Funny how that didn't happen with him leavin' a hole in the wall, but wonders will never cease.   
"Ah crud." Ben scratched his head. He gave the now actually reinforced door a couple goes with his shoulder and only came away with a sore shoulder.   
"I'll try from my side Ben," Suzie pitched above the wine of alarms, "you try from your side."  
"I already gave it a pitch. It ain't bustin'"  
"Not that kind of force. But like you did on the rocket." He could see her, suddenly, appendage by apendage in her blue undersuit, she appeared.   
He wasn't sure what she was yappin' about and told her so. He was still convinced half of what had happened when they left the stratosphere was some cooky dream.   
"You've been beating up steel furniture for months. I've heard you! Whatever you did unconsciously then, and in the rocket, you need to do now!" She stood legs far apart and fingers splayed as if pushing some invisible force down and up on the deadlocks. And stupefyingly, the metal looked to be respondin'.   
What had he been doin'? Breakin' stuff sure, he had plenty of steam to blow being trapped like an animal in that cage. And plenty o' shit to take out, instead of on Reed, for windin; them all in this mess.   
Whatever he'd done he didn't know if he could call it t'work on a whim. But it was worth a shot.   
Puttin' his hands either side of the hinges, he pushed with all his might. And something shifted in the metal. It was subtle but under his fingers, the weight seemed to move. If he could push it t'where Suzie was already tearin' it a new one. In what musta' been a trick of the light, the metal rippled under his palm and did just that.   
In a second, the door burst from its seams, still in Ben's grip and he hurled down the opposit hall to their next direction, as Suzie stepped outta the cell.   
She brushed herself off delicately, ever the lady and charged forward down the kid and Reed's cells.   
The squirt herself was huddled somewhere even the alarm lights didn't reach, the ice-filled the cell with stiff blue and dimness. Ben didn't resent the poor kid.   
Ben tried shoutin' in but maybe the cold didn't let the sound carry, as he couldn't see any movement. Suzie was pounding away at some kinda screened doohicky. He presumed it was some fancy thermostat keeping the cold all the way below zero.   
"You workin' on the door? How'dja get so good with computers?"  
"Know those books I had them bring me? That I kept promising information in exchange for?" he nodded, havin' heard that exchange and the shoutin' match it caused when she only drip-fed them pedantic details about the flight. He'd smiled his first in months at that.   
"They were all about cutting edge cybertracking and central network systems. Unbeknownst to them, focusing on the same Oscorp systems they've been using to electro-seal these doors."  
"I knew I like'd ya." He smirked. "Day we met I said t'myself, "stick with her she'd goin' places.""  
"Never figured that place would be space then Area 51 though, right?"  
"Nah. But that's all Reed."  
Suzie smiled, but she looked down, sad. He huffed. She pressed in a final button and Ben watched the slow process of meltin' the encasin' ice. "Please don't be too harsh with him for what happened. We both know him well enough that he'll be carrying all that guilt. Especially when he sees all of us."   
Any contemplation Ben might have made of that was interrupted by a burst of white light. He watched the glass casing stretch and bend at the edge and corners. Ben tried to do what he did earlier with Suzies' cell door. Another rev of heat soon had him pullin' his hand away, and his mouth dropped to the floor as he watched the glass bubble and melt. Ben rushed out the way of the kid as she stepped out consumed from head t'toe with fire.   
"Y'wanna turn it down matchstick? Its bad enough with those alarms, if I squint any more I'll be needin' reading' glasses by 30."  
"Do you know how Jan?" Suzie was always more kid-gloves with the kid, y'know except when she wasn't.   
The kid scrunched up her face the way she did when she pitched a ball or when she'd try an' follow one of Reed's rambles. But t'give the kid credit, a few breaths and the blaze drew down to a simmer. Still filling the now darkish hallways with light, but it ain't swealterin like the Sahara anymore.   
"Thanks." He tried to clap her on the back, but quickly hand to put his thumb in his mouth. Stupid fire.   
"Reed next?" the kid's voice crackled. He guessed he wasn't the only physically transformed by their little pop t'the moon.   
The three of them launch down the hallway, Ben's heavy footsteps houndin' their arrivival.   
When they get there, the beanpol's already up and at 'em in his blue undersuit same as Suzie and the kid; he suddenly felt very self-conscious about only havin' his pants.   
Still, Ben hugs him. Suzie kisses him. Kid does her best to de-flame but just burns more of the floor.   
They laugh t'gether. Feels like the first time they've done that in years.   
"So, you've been on the walkabout, Suzie. Ya gotta lay o' the place?"  
"Yeah," she looked down both hallways Reed's cell was in the middle of, and Ben could see the cogs turning.   
"If its any help, there seems to be residual draft around here. That may indicate, if not closer to the surface itself, we are situated closer to some method of escape. An elevator perhaps. " Reed pointed to the vents that had gotten more common, as they'd gotten further towards his cell. Smartass.   
"Air's cooler nearer hear too." The kid added.   
"Jannie, can you use your thermal vision to see the source of that?" The kid nodded.   
"Thermal vision?" Reed smirked softly. Ah hell, waita go and get him curious.   
"You can play Frankenstein later," he pointed at Reed who tried to look innocent, "y'focus now kid, I wanna get outta this place." The alarms still blared and the red emergency lights were makin' everything way creepier than need be. Gave him hives. Or would have, if he still had skin.   
The kid scrunched her eyes closed with effort and when they open the three of them nearly shit their pants. Fire outta the kids eyes. This was their new normal, huh?  
She wandered in a weird circle, groping the walls before she pointed in a 45-degree angle at one of the walls down the hall.   
"We continue down here an' turn left, there's a hangar with a Quinjet. How's everyone feel about steelin' government property?"  
"I'm game."  
"We appear to have been arrested for it once. Twice won't do any more harm."  
"Best leave the jokes to Ben and Jan, love." she patted his arm condescendingly with a broad grin that was all love, an' all Suzie. "Let's go!"  
They followed her lead down the hall untill the got to a cross section the kid was talkin' about.   
What was new, and the kid made that obvious by pullin' up short with a gasp was the glowing blonde woman blocking their exit, the guy in the blue jacket with a 90s haircut from before, Strand and a dozen mooks with guns pointed right at 'em.   
"uh, plan? Anyone?" he piped, the kid began raisin' her hands above her head. The three of them raised to do the same before realising what she was doing.   
Extendin' her hands forward, fire shot from her hands and melted the guns o' the nearest bootlickers. Tom Cruise-lookin' guy ducked for cover and ran down the turn they need to GTFO of this mess!  
The rest of the mooks began shootin' like a Rambo movie and would'a had them in the daisies if some invisible force didn't shield them from said bullets. Ten bucks to bet where that came from.   
"7 outta stock and 5 packin' melted. I'm likin' those odds." He cracked his knuckles.   
"Hey, Ben," the kid asked with a smirk the siz'a texas. "What time is time?"  
"Time for you all to turn your asses back to your cells." Strand had the cojones t'be chewing a cigar in front of this shenaniganary. Ben was gonna enjoy handin' him his ass on a silver platter.   
But Ben almost jumped to the ceiling when blue-coated tubes snake around his feet, curl around the soldiers, dropping them on their asses, then smacking the colonel against the far wall, leaving a very satisfying dent. But the reall horror comes from watchin' em recoil back into Reed's arms.  
"Ya been able to do that the entire time?" Ben half-whispers, half-gasps, realising how high his voice became in shock only by Reed chucklin' in response.   
"Enough!" All their attention's called back to the glowy lady still standin' in their way. He thinks she realises the way four pairs of eyes turn towards their goal, by the way she squares up. Oh, if its a fight she wants...  
"This is your last warning: return to your cells."  
"Or what?"   
Clearly...Reed's come back game needs work.   
"What" it turns out t'mean yellow sparkles from her hands like the rest of her glowy ass, ready to blast them all to kingdom come.   
What this lady probably did not anticipate, was the matchstick answerin' the blast in kind, sendin' her across the room with one hand. But then, by the wide expression, neither did the kid.   
"We don't have time to waste!" Suzie gets them on track hurryin' down the left corridor, through a set of double doors into the hangar the kid talked about.   
Weird part number one is the number of mooks already down for the count by the time they arrive. Weird part number two is the hippy-lookin' fella stands t'the side of a quinjet. The hangar doors are open. He's missin' somethin'. It shouldn't be this easy.   
They run over, as a rumblin' and strange slicin' sound from behind them gets 'em movin'.   
"You with Captain Barbie back there?" the kid asks. She's gettin' better at pickin' up what they're all thinkin'.   
"Sargeant James Barnes. And no I'm not with her." The guy motions his hand to offer a handshake but awkwardly retracts, 'cause the whole human campfire thing. Smart guy.   
"This'll getcha to NYC. You gotta a plan for what to do with the entire spy community breathing down your necks?" he hands the keys to Suzie who, responsibly hands them to Ben. She nods.   
The kid, freak for all things mechanic, gives the engine a once over before throwing a thumbs up and headin' inside. She even manages to turn the campfire business off before she melts their ride.   
"Why are you helping us, Sargeant Barnes?" Reed presses.   
That name rings a bell, but Ben can't find it in him t'give a hoot. He more wants to here a good answer.   
The guy sighs and looks down at, Ben is only now noticing, mismatching hands: one flesh, one metal. He guesses he's glad he's not the only freak with body issues now.   
"I was in a position kinda like yours. Someone helped me when I needed it. A couple of someones actually. Guess, I'm just paying it forward." The guy looked grim, but he got the picture. Good enough for him.   
Both Suzie and Slim exchanged some more words, shook the guy's hand and piled in after Ben, who'd settled into the pilot's seat with the kid strapped in behind him. Now de-flamed, Reed to the opportunity to mess the kid's hair up, before slipping into the co-pilot's seat. Literally, like putty.   
Suzie sat down behind them, across from her lil' sis after a long hug and her own contribution to the kid moaning about access to a salon.   
The jet started up smooth and had them sailing out from beneath the sand to over the desert in half a minute.   
God, Ben missed flying. Missed being a pilot. Missed staring into midnight blue skies. Missin' feeling frickin' human rather than something to be stuffed into a cage.   
Most of all missed bein' around these asshats. They'd escaped and now were probably wanted fugitives, unless Suzie really did have one helluva plan for when they got back to NYC.   
An' yet, Ben couldn't think of anyone he'd want to be on the run with.   
Screw the feds. Screw the whole stinkin' world if they'd tried t'lock the four a'them up again.   
Four of them together?   
There ain't nothing they can't do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading x Please comment, critique and share.


	3. Sleep Doesn't Come Easy At Night

The steaming mug is a comforting weight, and Sue rolls it between her palms allowing the steam to billow into the night air and the heat to seep into her skin.   
"Yusef is helping Reed make up the guest bedroom, although Benjamin volunteered for the couch-bed. I've put malikat jamal alsaghir in my daughter's room," Muneeba passed as she dipped into the porch bench with her own drink tucked between gloved figures.   
"Your daughter won't mind?"  
"She's away at university," Muneeba chuckled conspiratorially. "What she doesn't know won't hurt her. Allah yufarigh alnuwm alsarie."  
"Shukraan lak min kulin qalbiin. I know what a risk this is for you. If it's discovered you helped us-" Muneeba cuts her off with a wave. She takes her hand in hers, warmed by the hot drink.   
"You were in need, my friend. That is all I needed to know." She took a long sip of her cardamom and smiles. "Besides, I always like to return a favour."   
They shared a peaceful silence as they take in the crisp night air together.   
"So, little one mentioned a plan?" Muneeba looked at her expectantly.   
Sue set her mug down and leant down to her sock and removed the curl of plastic, and touches it to the bench between them, careful to not let it fly away on the breeze. She had hidden this slip-on her person for months, amid routine checks and round-the-clock surveillance. A random woman had tackled her upon their arrest. Apparently to distract from pressing this into her palm; had risked arrest herself to pass this to Sue. And she had no idea what she was supposed to do with it.   
"What is it? A phone number?" Muneeba took the plastic slip between her fingers, equally judicious, and studied the 11 digits and Cyrillic print.  
"A name perhaps?" Sue pointed to the characters, total Greek-to-her. Muneeba hummed.   
"Black Widow. My daughter is far too, ah," she searched for the word, "pop-culture oriented? Yes. She enjoys this world of the fantastic too much, for me to not know that name."  
"And your experience with the CIA didn't help at all?" the smile Muneeba gave in response was as furtive as it was conciliatory.   
"It may have narrowed it down." The other woman tugged her hijab tighter around herself as the wind picked up.   
Sue took back the slip when it was handed to her, as smoothed it between her fingers as had become habitual in her cell.   
"If I do call," Mureeba looked to her expectantly after she broke the silence, "am I just opening us up to more trouble? I realize she's no friend of the Avengers, that split was made very clear and very public. But would she undermine them like that? To help us run?"   
"Is that really what you want? To be fugitives? Sue, no matter what they accused you of, from what you've told me? The way the ERU has treated you four, they are the real criminals! Would you really see them get away with this?"  
"I don't see what other choices we have," Sue looked at her hands, flickering from visible to translucency. "Despite being out of the cage, I feel more trapped than ever. So, yeah, that's the plan. Run."  
Muneeba took her hands in hers, "from my understanding, this woman, the Widow, is no friend of SHIELD's either, despite being a former agent. But that may work in your favour."   
Sue perked up, intrigued.  
"Do you know why the Widow severed herself from the Avengers?" Sue didn't and said so. She knew it had happened of course, but more by cultural osmosis than a conscious take-in of information. It was the kind of trivia discussed at the water-cooler or the breakfast table. Akin to a best-picture winner or a change in state governor; it never seems important until someone brings it up.   
"Allegedly, she leaked the income contributions of the annual budget. Stipulations of the revised Sakovia Accords are that the Avenger's independence relies on no funding from a single national government. And the leak contained information that, due to their status as a non-profit, would not have otherwise come to light in a tax return."  
"501(c)?"   
Muneeba nodded.   
"But what was so scandalous about a budget? Illegal sourcing?" Sue prompted.   
"Shell corporations. All with "extended contracts" held by SHIELD. Representing 58% of their income. "  
"Let me see if I've got this right: we have a non-profit, whose legality and independence relies on not being funded by a national government. But it turns out they're receiving funds from a US government agency via shell corporations. Meaning they're both breaking the only international law that protects intervention, and she revealed how large of an investment SHIELD. By extension, the US government, has in their activities?"  
Muneeba nodded again, eyes shining. Sue was still confused, though. "So she leaked to the press? What does this have to do with our situation Muneeba? I still don't understand."  
Muneeba gestured for her to wait a moment as she removed her phone from her pocket and brought up a New York Bulletin.   
"This journalist -Ben Urich- discovered that a company called "Digmetrics"," she scrolled through the article as Sue peered over her shoulder. "That had been shutting down social media posts about your arrest 9 months ago, a suspiciously familiar algorithm tracked and removed all mention of it."  
"Your algorithm? The one you designed to help curtail Islamophobia online?" Sue fumed for the betrayal, and Muneeba's expression tightened as she took a deep drink, before setting the empty mug down.  
Sue changed the subject, "I remember a fair few news cameras at the bay. How would it be kept out of the mainstream media reporting?"   
"Buried it! Some election fraud in Canada broke the same day as the arrest. It was out of the news cycle by the evening, I watched it happen. They are trying to keep your case out of public attention."   
"So we out SHIELD? Counteract the silencing and bring what they did to public light?"   
"I think the Widow could help you with this. She certainly has the experience."   
"Or I could be opening us up to greater harm if this doesn't work. I'm not the only one at risk."  
Muneeba seemed to sense Sue's apprehension and drew her into a hug. "You'll know what to do," Sue appreciated her friend's trust and assurance, 133OP90as well as her similar urge to protect those she loved, but Sue wasn't so sure.   
Ben and Jannie would want to face the problem head-on, but she knew the situation was layered, and they had to be smarter than that. Reed's sense of personal honour to "the system" would collide with his guilt complex and leave him indecisive. They couldn't afford that, she had to take action.   
Not confrontationally, that could get them all locked away again. No, from a very different angle. "I should talk it over with them first."  
Sue stood from the bench, collecting her abandoned mug from the ground and wrapping her arms around herself, about to head inside. Muneeba followed her inside, and hovered at the light switch to the torchlight, "do it the morning, my friend. I think you'll all need your sleep tonight."

**Author's Note:**

> This is a pretty long work I've had on the books for a while. Please leave comments and constructive criticism below.


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